TwentyOne in One
by Sakura's Small Lily
Summary: My first one-shot, based on The Long Goodbye. This is what happened the day before Shotaro met Akiko. Please read and review.


**This is my first one-shot, a little OOC, but hopefully not too much. No OCs in this fic guys, this'll be a fanfic on the real show.**

**Twenty-One in One**

Shotaro awoke to his alarm clock, slamming it on the snooze button. Then rolled back to sleep. About five minutes it went off again. He pressed the button again. It seemed faster to go off as he finally relented, getting up.

He took a quick shower, did his usual thing with his hair (whatever it was), then put on his regular clothes. He took a glance at his deceased boss's hat, then grabbed his Windscale hat and put it on.

After that, he walked over to the kitchen to see that Phillip had already prepared breakfast. Bacon, eggs, and coffee for him. He scarfed it all down before holding his stomach in satisfaction.

He knew it would be one of those days.

The first person who walked into his office was a plain old man who looked as if he never got any sleep. He had an unshaven mustache, he had bags under his eyes, and no hair. He slammed his massive bottom onto the seat in front of Shotaro's desk, and began to speak.

"So I hear you're a private investigator." The man said.

"It says so in the cardboard sign." Shotaro said. "I am a HARDboiled detective, thank you very much."

"I don't care how hard you are." The man looked irritated now. "You investigate stuff, right?"

"To some extent, yes."

"Well, here's my story. I have a couple of kids. Two to be exact, and each of them brighten my sad face everytime I get home. But for some reason, the old lady who lives next door seem to think they're all irritating, just because they like to shout a lot, and play in her yard a couple of times, hop her-"

"I am a busy man. What exactly do you want from me then?"

"Now for some reason, she sends me desserts and all sorts of treats through packages and other stuff. The only thing wrong is the first time I ate it, I got food poisoning and threw up all night."

Shotaro frowned. "Uh-huh."

And what's worse is that she puts the addresses of family members so that she could fool us into thinking that its from them, when it really isn't! It gets really confusing, y'know!"

"Okay then."

"It says you're a private investigator right? So, go out there and investigate her! I'll give you 10,000 yen if you do!"

_Oh geez, this doesn't sound like a dopant case at all. This doesn't suit my hardboiled lifestyle. _Shotaro slammed his hands to the desk. "Sorry, I've got my hands full on a different case right now. Just call the police."

"I tried them. Told me they'd get to it next year. Now listen to me hot-shot, you think you're so high and mighty you don't need to bother saving the lives of little kids huh? If I find her delivering another of those packages, I'll kill her!"

_I highly doubt that. _He thought.

Just as the man turned around and started for the door, Shotaro said, "You sure she's trying to poison your kids?"

"Sure I'm sure." The man was opening the door before he blinked, then turned around, his hands balled into a fist. "You wanna say that again?"

"Nope."

He gave Shotaro a glare, then walked out. Of course, Shotaro was thinking common sense. He'd probably have been smashed into his desk, that scrawny little hardboiled person.

The next person who walked into the office was a young college girl who had come from a few miles of UOF, University of Futo. She was obviously poor, wearing an apron and her face was covered in small smudges of dirt. Apparently, a girl that held a grudge on her for taking her crush away from her had began stealing stuff from her. First it was a hairbrush, then it was a sandwich, then her favorite pan, and so on. And she was poor, not being able to afford avoiding her or going to a different college, or even hiring an actual detective.

"And so you expect me to scare her?" Shotaro's eyes looked lazy.

"Yes."

"Just tell one of your friends to do it. Anybody, even your mom could do it."

"Yeah, but you're a detective."

"So?"

"Okay, how about this. You say you're working on it, then I'll tell her you said it and scare her. And you don't have to do anything."

"She could report me for this, you know. And if she does, I'm just gonna have to tell her what really happened."

"...you're not really nice."

"Where did it say I have to be?"

She left angrily.

After a lunch at McDonalds, he came back to find a man standing outside his door. This guy was even fatter than the other guy, but he looked more proper, rich even! And he looked way more calm than the other two.

"Name's Kazuki." The man said as he sat down on the chair, a challenge that was probably harder than anything he had ever done. "I'm half-Japanese, half-American. People say I'm pretty rich, but I just say I'm pretty successful. I'm married to a woman seventeen years younger than me, beautiful and young."

He handed Shotaro a picture. To him, she was fatter than Kazuki and not really that beautiful. He could've been beautiful to his client though.

"This has nothing to do with divorce right?" Shotaro asked. "I don't do those. Doesn't suit the hardboiled style."

"It's more like Kaneko has run off somewhere. Probably with another guy."

Apparently, she was literally younger than him by a lot. She cheated a lot, drank too much, wasn't a good wife. But to him, he loved her very much and wanted what's best for her. He also knew who she was with probably.

"That jerk Mitani was the person who probably did it. Sneaking around my house while I'm not at home, then finding him flirting with her when I get there."

Shotaro took off his hat. "If it's a Missing Report case, why don't you call the police?"

"Kaneko gets awfully ashamed easily. It would hurt her too much."

Then, Kazuki slammed a check with 100,000 yen written on it. "I'll pay you this much if you can get her back."

Shotaro looked at the check, then looked back at Kazuki. "You do realize she'll probably cheat again, right?"

Kazuki looked at him sadly. "Yes, but she'll probably get over it. Maybe she sleeps with other people to have kids, as she can't when she sleeps with me for some reason. She's probably ashamed about it."

"You forgive a lot, don't you Kazuki-san?"

He handed him a postcard, and said, "I received this from her a few hours ago, from China. There's a good chance she's somewhere over there."

After that, he handed him a picture of Mitani, who looked very dishonest in his photo which wasn't in Shotaro's suprise, his phone number, his address, and all sorts of information related to Kaneko.

Then Shotaro began asking even more questions about her, spending the next half hour doing that. Then they stood up, shook hands, and Kazuki finally left.

Right after that, Shotaro slammed into the huge garage that held their giant machine housing his motorcycle. Phillip sat on the trash can with a bored look on his face.

"Yo Shotaro. You have anything for me to do or study. Because right now, I'm really, REALLY bored." He said with a sigh.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got something for you."

Phillip immediately stood up and walked to the middle of the room. He held both his hands up and closed his eyes. His conscience was immediately sent into the Bookshelves of Earth, with dozens of bookshelves appearing around him.

"The first keyword is China. It was the place where Kaneko ran off to."

A few bookshelves disappeared, but not too many. "You have anything more specific?"

"Yeah, the name Kaneko herself. That's the name of Kazuki's cheating wife."

Plenty of bookshelves began disappearing, much to Phillip's pleasure.

"The next word is Mitani. That's the name of the person that Kazuki suspects is with his wife."

Once again, more bookshelves began disappearing, finally down to the last book. The word place appeared on the cover.

Phillip left the bookshelves back to his original body, then opened it up. "Not too many people named Kaneko and Mitani in China..." He muttered as he opened the book up. "The place they're probably at is... the Huangban hotel! The only of its kind."

Shotaro nodded then said, "Let's go Phillip."

He then went on and got a ticket towards China. He went there and found her stuck at the hotel. It seemed that Mitani left her after sleeping with her without paying, and now she had to pay by working there. She had been scrubbing bathrooms all week, but for some reason found it enjoyable...?

Anyway, in the end, Shotaro solved the case. The money was sent to him, however, he accidentally ran it through a paper shredder. He however did write a record of what happened on his typewriter.

The next day, he rode his motorcycle towards Kazuki's house to get more money. He was happy to do so, being pleased with his wife at home. Also, he tricked him into thinking that he needed more money to deal with some issues about this case.

As he rode back, he noticed a girl wearing pink staring at his cardboard sign. He grabbed his Windscale hat and put it on, turning his head towards her.

He asked this, "Can I help you?"

**The end. If you noticed, and you should if you ever read The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler, this chapter was modeled after a chapter from his book. All of this was based on the chapter, I only changed it slightly. **


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